Milk thistle; Saint Mary’s Thistle
The Milk Thistle plant is Native to the Mediterranean. Giant shiny-leaved plant with white variegations and towering, purple-flowered thistles. Milk Thistle is grown for its seed, which is a unique hepato-protective agent, containing among other flavonoids the much-touted silymarin. The seed itself, ground up and added to food or made into an alcoholic extract and taken internally, will help protect the liver from damage by environmental toxins, poisons or disease. Cultivation: Easy. Direct seed in the late summer or early spring. Space the plants 3 feet apart, and leave 5 feet between the villianously spiny leaves for access to harvest the capitulae, which are armed with needles at the tip of the bract.
- Strictly Medicinal